Your websites width? (what do you prefer, and use?)

stevemclintock · 21 Jun 2007 at 15:41

Hi

I'm creating the very basic template for a website at the moment. I *thought* I had finished it until testing it on different screens & platforms showed that getting the width right is so difficult to do! ... Do comply with 800x600, 1024x768, etc. etc. !!??

I've noticed all the big websites use elasticated design where it will stretch to the sides of your screen, but when it reaches a certain width it will stop?

So I thought I'd ask you lot, what do you prefer when surfing websites, and what do you actual use in practise?

Steve.

paulsheffII · 21 Jun 2007 at 15:47

I make all my templates 780 pixels wide with 10 pixels of background showing already on that either side, so the main content is never wider than 760px.

Just personal preference really, I think it's difficult to retain structured design on an expanding design, like designing print artwork without knowing the size of the paper.

Audiofreq · 21 Jun 2007 at 15:52

Yeah I generally go for 800px wide centered with margin auto auto.

Like paul said it's good to know what your working with...

However...some designs do suit a flexi width or a little give in width.

stevemclintock · 21 Jun 2007 at 15:54

True

My current width is set at 900px wide, and on a resolution of 1024x768 theres around a 40px gap on either side for the background.

What i'm wondering is designing for 800x600 resolutions has gone out the window now, but with the huge increase of pocket pc's being used nowadays, for example the iPhone and all the others, with the screen resolution suddenly flipping from portrait to landscape mode, my design won't look any good in them.

Cuchulain · 21 Jun 2007 at 15:55

normally 1003px (or less with borders) as most of my customers demand fixed width to fit in IE6/7 @ 1024x768

furnace · 21 Jun 2007 at 15:56

With my personal sites, I make them work on 1440x900, and test them to work on 1024x768+, and a mobile phone screen. IMO, if everyone keeps catering for 800x600, then people aren't gonna stop using the resolution

If a site proves a bit tricky to make work at 800x600 then I don't bother

stevemclintock · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:09

furnace said:
IMO, if everyone keeps catering for 800x600, then people aren't gonna stop using the resolution

Definetly agree with you there

I remember hearing a year ago at least that 1024x768 was the new 800x600, but it just never happened. I've noticed that Apple's new site design is catered for 1024x768+, so figured the industry is now finally starting to adopt this.

Do you mind me asking how you cater for 1024x768+ as well mobile screens?

Vulcan · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:16

I either use 900px or I just stretch the design out using 100%.

Cuchulain said:
normally 1003px (or less with borders) as most of my customers demand fixed width to fit in IE6/7 @ 1024x768

On the latest design I used, I blocked IE6 users. Why don't your customers upgrade?

Cuchulain · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:19

Longbow said:
On the latest design I used, I blocked IE6 users. Why don't your customers upgrade?

Because that's their choice not mine and the site isn't for their benefit it's for their customers, slightly difficult to contact every prospective surfer to make sure they're upgraded to IE7 before visiting the site, as for blocking browsers, no-one with any business sense would do that.

stevemclintock · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:24

Longbow said:
I either use 900px or I just stretch the design out using 100%.

On the latest design I used, I blocked IE6 users. Why don't your customers upgrade?

Because either they don't even know there is an upgrade out, or they don't know how.

I know M$ are appauling, I can't stand them personally, but we still have to cater for them, your making a huge error in blocking IE6 users. As an example, My company, as well as a lot others might I add, have not got round to it yet as it takes time to cover the problems that it might cause etc. etc.

Vulcan · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:37

stevemclintock said:
Because either they don't even know there is an upgrade out, or they don't know how.

I know M$ are appauling, I can't stand them personally, but we still have to cater for them, your making a huge error in blocking IE6 users. As an example, My company, as well as a lot others might I add, have not got round to it yet as it takes time to cover the problems that it might cause etc. etc.

Well the design wasn't used for a business, or even a large site. But it uses a lot of CSS features that IE6 doesn't support, as well as many alpha transparent PNG images, which IE6 doesn't support.

The blocked page shows how to upgrade to IE7 or to another browser. If they're too stupid to do so, then I don't want them on my website, or even the internet for that matter.

Not got around to it? IE7 was released 8 months ago.

I know it's not going to happen, but if everyone blocked IE6 users, they would upgrade, and the web developers could rejoice.

Zaphan58 · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:37

I generaly use a fixed width of about 900px so it looks good on 1024x768 and above. Like others say it means you know what your working with.

furnace · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:37

IE6 makes developing websites absolute hell sometimes. It would only be a good thing (again, IMO, of course) if every website blocked IE6 users apart from the IE7 update page

Making a website work on a mobile phone screen is really just a case of using good CSS - so the phone can decide what it can and can't render

Cuchulain · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:43

Longbow said:
Well the design wasn't used for a business, or even a large site. But it uses a lot of CSS features that IE6 doesn't support, as well as many alpha transparent PNG images, which IE6 doesn't support.

The blocked page shows how to upgrade to IE7 or to another browser. If they're too stupid to do so, then I don't want them on my website, or even the internet for that matter.

Not got around to it? IE7 was released 8 months ago.

I know it's not going to happen, but if everyone blocked IE6 users, they would upgrade, and the web developers could rejoice.

I hope you're not trying to somehow infer that you're a "web developer" as you can't even understand the basics of accessability.

Vulcan · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:52

Cuchulain said:
I hope you're not trying to somehow infer that you're a "web developer" as you can't even understand the basics of accessability.

I like to play around, I don't make designs for people.

The basics of accessibility? For the design I used the current technology, not having to use god awful hacks etc to get things to work, which in some cases, don't anyway.

Tripnologist · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:52

My personal sites are done to whatever width works best with the layout I come up with. I figure it's my site and I can do whatever I want with it. Accessibility be damned. Funny though that I say that, as I still wouldn't dream of using images to display text headers or navigation or tables for nontabular data or even non semantic markup.

For nonpersonal sites, I've pretty much completely dropped 800x600. The rare occasion yes if the graphical design calls for it.
900px wide and centered seems to work well for 1024x768 as it leaves about 47px of space on each side for background. I find if it goes any wider, content starts to look stretched. I'd rather read a long paragraph over 4 or 5 nice lines of text than the same paragraph stretched across one or two lines on a widescreen monitor.

I also still ensure that the navigation and most of the main content can be seen without scrolling on 800x600.

blade007 · 21 Jun 2007 at 16:55

whoever blocks IE6 is nuts. There are a lot of people out there on IE6.

I test all my sites that I make for client on FF, IE7 and IE6. If there's a cross browser bug (with CSS rendering) then I correct it, in my own time if I have to - yes it's a pain but I've never had an unhappy client. Attention to detail keeps clients.

Tripnologist · 21 Jun 2007 at 17:01

blade007 said:
whoever blocks IE6 is nuts. There are a lot of people out there on IE6.

I test all my sites that I make for client on FF, IE7 and IE6. If there's a cross browser bug (with CSS rendering) then I correct it, in my own time if I have to - yes it's a pain but I've never had an unhappy client. Attention to detail keeps clients.

Agreed. At the very least, I'd much prefer all the IE nuts to move on to IE7 but that's not going to happen for a while. For personal sites, do whatever you wish but you'd be silly to intentionally cut out a browser on any business site.
Heck, many developers still cater for IE5.x.
I only test on IE6, IE7, FF, Opera and Safari though.

Also, I've never run into a css problem that couldn't be made to work across all the browsers I test on.

JamesU2005 · 21 Jun 2007 at 17:03

Your nuts to "ban" IE6 users.

Says it all here:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

and

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

Nomisf · 23 Jun 2007 at 00:23

Personally all the sites I develop, personal or client are fully fluid, and adapt the the space or browser they are given, right up to silly resolutions and right down to phone screens.

I agree it is difficult and sometimes tedious but it does pay to have an "anywhere/anytime" style design as it keeps sites open IMO to the greatest audience, no matter how technologically behind they are (within reason ).